Section 14.4. Four Speed Tricks


14.4. Four Speed Tricks

It's a fact of computing. Every PC seems to get slower the longer you own it.

There are plenty of reasons, mostly having to do with the fact that a computer is fastest when it's new and empty:

  • The hard drive has loads of free space.

  • The boot process hasnt yet been cluttered up by startup code deposited by your programs.

  • Few background programs are constantly running, eating up your memory.

  • You havent yet drained away horsepower with antivirus and automatic backup programs.

  • Every year, the programs you buy or download are more demanding than the previous years software.

Some of the usual advice about speeding up your PC applies here, of course: install more memory or a faster hard drive.

But in Windows Vista, here and there, nestled among the 50 million lines of Vista code, you'll find some free tricks and tips for giving your PC a speed boost. For example:

14.4.1. SuperFetch

Your PC can grab data from RAM (memory) hundreds of times faster than from the hard drive. That's why it uses a cache , a portion of memory that holds bits of software code that you've used recently. After all, if you've used some feature or command once, you may want to use it again soonand this way, Windows is ready for you. It can deliver that bit of code nearly instantaneously the next time.

When you leave your PC for a while, however, background programs (virus checkers, backup programs, disk utilities) take advantage of the idle time. They run themselves when you're not aroundand push out whatever was in the cache.

That's why, when you come back from lunch (or sit down first thing in the morning), your PC is especially sluggish . All the good stuff your stuffhas been flushed from the cache and returned to the much slower hard drive, to make room for those background utilities.

SuperFetch attempts to reverse that cycle. It attempts to keep your most frequently used programs in the cache all the time. In fact, it actually tracks you and your cycle of work. If you generally fire up the computer at 9 a.m., for example, or return to it at 1:30 p.m., SuperFetch will anticipate you by restoring frequently used programs and documents to the cache.

There's no on/off switch for SuperFetch, and nothing for you to configure. It's on all the time, automatic, and very sweet.

14.4.2. ReadyBoost

Your PC can get to data in RAM (memory) hundreds of times faster than it can fetch something from the hard drive. That's why it uses a cache , a portion of memory that holds bits of software code that you've used recently.

The more memory your machine has, the more that's available for the cache, and the faster things should feel to you. Truth is, though, you may have a bunch of memory sitting around your desk at this moment that's completely wasted namely, USB flash drives . That's perfectly good RAM that your PC can't even touch if it's sitting in a drawer .

That's the whole point of ReadyBoost: to use a flash drive as described above as additional cache storage. You can achieve the same effect by installing more RAM, of course, but that job can be technical (especially on laptops), forbidden (by your corporate masters), or impossible (because you've used up all your PC's RAM slots already).

To take advantage of this speed- boosting feature, just plug a USB flash drive into your computer's USB jack.


Note: Both the flash drive and your PC must have USB 2.0 or later. USB 1.1 is too slow for this trick to work.

In any case, the AutoPlay dialog box now opens, as shown in Figure 14-9 (top). Click "Speed up my system"; in the flash device's Properties dialog box (which opens automatically), turn on "Use this device." That box is shown in Figure 14-9, bottom.

Figure 14-9. Lower right: The AutoPlay dialog box opens when you insert a flash drive. "Speed up my system" is the English version of the term ReadyBoost .
Top left: You can decide for yourself how much of the flash drive's storage is used for ReadyBoost purposes, although you won't notice any speed difference unless the real-to-flash memory ratio is 2.5 to 1 or lower.


That's all there is to it. Your PC will now use the flash drive as an annex to its own built-in RAM, and you will, in theory, enjoy a tiny speed lift as a result.

And now, the fine print:

  • Not all flash drives are equally fast, and therefore not all work with ReadyBoost. Look closely at the drives packaging to see if there's a Vista ReadyBoost logo. (Technically speakingvery technicallyits throughput must be capable of 2.5 MB per second for 4 K random reads, and 1.75 MB per second for 512 K random writes .)

  • ReadyBoost works only with memory gadgets with capacities from 256 megabytes to 4 gigabytes.

  • Once youve set aside space on the flash drive for ReadyBoost, you can't use it for storing everyday files. (Unless, of course, you change the settings in its Properties dialog box or reformat it.)

  • You can use one flash drive per PC, and one PC per flash drive.

  • The biggest speed gains appear when you have a 1-to-1 ratio between real PC memory and your flash drive. For example, if your PC has 1 gigabyte of RAM, adding a 1-gig flash drive should give you a noticeable speed boost.

    The speed gains evaporate as you approach a 2.5-to-1 ratio. For example, suppose your PC has 1 gigabyte of RAM and you add a 256-megabyte flash drive. That's an 8-to-1 ratio, and you won't feel any acceleration at all.

14.4.3. Shutting Off Bells and Whistles

Vista, as you know, is all dressed up for "Where do you want to go today?" It's loaded with glitz, glamour, special effects, and animations. And every one of them saps away a little bit of speed.

With any luck, your PC is a mighty fortress of seething gigahertz that brushes off that kind of resource-sapping as though it were a mere cloud of gnats . But when things start to bog down, remember that you can turn off some of the bells and whistlesand recover the speed they were using.

Here's how.

Open the Start menu. Right-click Computer; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. In the System control panel that appears, click "Advanced system settings" at left. Authenticate yourself (Section 6.3).

Now, on the Advanced tab (Figure 14-10, top), click the uppermost Settings button. You've just found, in the belly of the beast , the complete list of the little animations that make up Vista's Windows dressing (Figure 14-10, bottom). For example, "Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing" makes Windows present a half-second animation showing your window actually shrinking down onto the taskbar when you minimize it. "Show shadows under mouse pointer" produces a tiny shadow beneath your cursor, as though it were floating a quarter-inch above the surface of your screen.

Figure 14-10. Top left: The Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box offers three Settings buttons . The one you want is at the top.
Bottom right: Depending on the speed and age of your machine, you may find that turning off all of these checkboxes produces a snappier, more responsive PCif a bit less Macintosh-esque. (Leave "Use visual styles on windows and buttons" turned on, however, if you like the new, glossy look of Windows Vista.)


With one clickon "Adjust for best performance"you can turn off all of these effects. Or, if there are some you can't live withoutand let's face it, tooltips just aren't the same if they don't fade into viewclick Custom, and then turn off the individual checkboxes for the features you don't need.

14.4.4. Toning Down the Aero

Aero is the new visual look of Windows Vista, but the power for its visual effectsdrop shadows, transparency, glitzdoesn't grow on trees. If you can do without some of it, you gain another itty-bitty speed boost. See Section 5.1 for instructions.




Windows Vista for Starters
Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528264
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 175
Authors: David Pogue

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net